37 "Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; 38 give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you."

What does it mean to judge?

It means: to call in question or to guess by estimation.

To scrutinize by looking for blemishes or faults so that a punishment may be pronounced.

We are not God, we are not omniscient. We don’t have the complete picture, we are simply making assumptions according to what we see, hear and feel.

This is why we have to be so careful to judge people…Jesus didn’t say “don’t judge”, but he is saying that “if you don’t want to be judged then don’t judge.”

When you judge a person in an area of their life, be sure that you stand ready to be judged and found without blame. Other wise the same sentence you executed on someone else will be executed upon you.

That is why we are not to judge any man without full, clear, and certain knowledge, without absolute necessity, without tender love. (I as a pastor)

To judge enacts the golden rule on our life. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Except now it is, “as you have passed judgment on others, it’s going to happen to you.”

John Wesley wrote: Our Lord now proceeds to warn us against the chief hindrances of holiness. “judging”, “To miss the mark”

We miss the mark and fail by:

1. Judge others out of pride and envy.

We judge others out of pride and envy because we want to experience or have what we are lacking that someone else is enjoying.

• We want what they have.

• We want to do what they do.

• We want their body.

• We want to be just as spiritual.

So we have to judge them and nock them down a notch just so we can feel better about our selves.

We have to tear apart their successes so we can feel better about our failures.

“People that identify themselves as a failure tend to judge those with success.”

We find reasons why:

• we deserve it and they don’t deserve it.

• we it passed us by and landed on them.

Those that struggle with pride and envy are those that have deficiencies in their own life. Faith, family, finances, physical health.

27-3 But God was not at all pleased with what David had done, and sent Nathan to David. Nathan said to him, "There were two men in the same city—one rich, the other poor. The rich man had huge flocks of sheep, herds of cattle. The poor man had nothing but one little female lamb, which he had bought and raised. It grew up with him and his children as a member of the family. It ate off his plate and drank from his cup and slept on his bed. It was like a daughter to him.